Search This Blog

Mini Auto - Initial D Trueno AE86

This is a die cast scale model of Toyota Trueno AE86 that appear in the legendary Initial D manga, anime and film series in 1/28 scale with some fun features like lights and sounds, more on that as you read further...

Some simple historical information - Initial D is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno. It was serialized in Young Magazine from 1995 to 2013, with the chapters collected into 48 tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. The story focuses on the world of illegal Japanese street racing, where all the action is concentrated in the mountain passes and rarely in cities or urban areas, and with the drift racing style emphasized in particular. Professional race car driver and pioneer of drifting Keiichi Tsuchiya helped with editorial supervision.

The story is centered on the prefecture of Gunma, more specifically on several mountains in the Kantō region and in their surrounding cities and towns. Although some of the names of the locations the characters race in have been fictionalized, all of the locations in the series are based on actual locations in Japan.

I've been following the anime series since 1998 and all the way to the final episode in 2014 - a remarkable 17 years of long adventure with plenty of waiting in between but it is really worth it. The only other anime that I still followed for a long time (and waiting for it to finish) is Saiyuki (since 2000 - about 17 years as well - as at now) by Minekura Kazuya.

Nonetheless, let's focus on this die-cast scale model...

First thing first, the box/packaging:

The box/packaging looks pretty good, whatever we can see from the pictures above - it doesn't feel Chinese, it's simple and pretty neat in fact. I like!!!!

OK, let's have a look at the car, it comes with a pretty decent looking mounting display base, I like!!!

As you can see from the picture below, the display base bearing the name of the manufacturer - MINI AUTO. If you don't like that you can easily customize it, change the paint color and put any label that you like.

Let's remove it from that display base:

As you can see from the pictures above, this product comes with a very decent finishing and decent detailing, it's not perfect or incredible but considering the cheap price tag, I personally would say that this is brilliant and I like it and I'm quite happy with it.

Now, let's see what else this car can do apart from the look decent, time to reveal all the features....

And here it is - openable doors and engine hood and as well as the trunk (or the boot) - plus there's some engine parts that you can see - isn't that cool? Oh yes, the front light can be hidden or shown as it should be - fantastic!!!

As for interior detailing... well, please see the pictures below, again it's not perfect but for me personally, this is pretty good and I like it!!!

The engine bay with all those "engine stuff" - not real, but then again this is quite decent:

The size of this die-cast car model is at 1/28 scale and that's how it looks like if you put the 1/144 scale Gundam, typical 3.75 inch Hasbro action figures, a Hot Wheels Ferrari and a Tomica Lambo:

And oh... talking about the features, I'm not done yet but the best way to show the other features are through video, please watch the short video below and pardon me, I'm not good with this video thingy and the video is taken using some cheap Android (Chinese made) mobile phone.

So what do you think? it's fun right? Well, at least for me personally - I love it!!!

Overall, I think this is one of the best purchase I've ever made in my life and I'm extremely happy and I like this product a lot and I have no problem to recommend it to any other Initial D car collectors. The price is extremely cheap which I will tell you more about it later. The casting is very decent and it looks really like the typical Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86 and the typical Initial D 86. The painting finishing is very good and the other additional detailing like plastic parts for front and rear lamps, decent looking interior, openable engine hood, the engine, the sound and the lights and the display base - all this is unbelievable for the price I paid for this item. So yes, if you see one and the price is not extremely ridiculous, you should get one of this without doubt.

In case if you want to see the bottom parts of this car:

And yeah, finally the price - it's a mere B$10.00 (SGD 10.00 / USD 7.34 / GBP 5.60 / EUR 6.33 / JPY 836) and I'm not joking, look at the price tag at the bottom left corner of the bottom part of the box/packaging that feel so Chinese and that's really the price we paid at one of the local departmental store here. Amazing, absolutely amazing!!!

Thus during the course of this review, I never pointed any negatives about this product because with such cheap price and all those features that you can see and enjoy, it's quite a bitch for not being grateful. It's a fun toy, one that worth to be kept and collected by most people, simple as that. If you think you must have perfection, if you want to rants about imperfection and accuracy and bla bla bla then by all means go grab the one from Auto Art and pay for the premium price (if you can still get it). As a matter of fact, I can always customize this model and do a little bit of painting, a bit of touch up and detailing work here and there to improvise and make it look almost accurate.

With the cheap price, I have no heart to find fault on this car but rather I choose to embrace it and have fun with it - it's a toy!!! have fun with it!!! simple as that.

I have few others Initial D 86 in my collections as listed below but this is the best of them all simply because it's cheap!!!!

Comments

I didn’t know you loved so much the Initial D anime TV series, but looking at your varied collection I have no doubt about it, it’s definitely one of your all time favorites !!!...

I used to despise the compact japanese cars of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, my preferences went to american and european cars mainly, but when I began to collect scale replicas of vehicles, as adult, little by little love and respect were emerging from the knowledge I got about them, through my hobby... Now, I have gotten several japanese car models from different manufacturers and I do understand the appreciation that these vehicles get from other friends and fellow collectors like you !!!...

I think this new item in your collection is an amazing finding, with all those features it’s excellent value for you money, I mean, it’s a whole bargain and it doesn’t disappoint at all in terms of quality... I would be happy too (or maybe even dancing LOL) with an item like this, paying so little for it !!!... =OOOOO

Initial D is sure Urban legend in terms of anime.. though I don’t advocate illegal racing. The pick of Truno out maneuvering newer and fast cars makes it damn cool. The price for the amount of details seems unbelievable..